I have a 2005 e60 and i want to change the cluster ring. On mine's the ring is this plasticy silver color which i don't really like and want to swap it with the 2008+ ones. They have this brushed metal look which I like.
I was wondering if anyone has done this mod and where i can buy this.

See the plasticy silver?


The brushed chrome.

 

Hi

What your are looking for is the E60/61 LCI cluster look.

The easy way to do this "upgrade" is to find a "defect" LCI cluster ( perhaps at a junkyard ) and then just swap the frontcover/frontglas , and you set

Regards
BenAnd

 

Here's a little post which is on the subject of instruments but regretably not on topic viz your particular upgrade; sorry I can't add to that little conundrum but I wish you good luck and look forward to see the results.

I totally agree on the difference between pre and post LCI instruments. I have an LCI and love the look. Yesterday I testdrove an F11 and apart from the nice resolution of the digital displays and the long awaited adittion of a coolant temperature gauge, I really think the corporate bean counters at bmw have gone too far in skimping on the instrument cluster. The new instruments look like they come from a Kia in all their shiny plastic glory!



The otherwise excellent cruise control LED is now a faint little dot; the realtime fuel economy gauge that have been a bmw tradition since the 80's have been replaced by a useless "look i have regenerative braking installed" feature and the fuel gauge is even worse than before; why not have a more accurate description with gallons or litres instead of dumbing it down. They used to do that with the e39:



The e34 wasn't bad either with good improvements over its predecessor:



Here's the less than stylish e28:



and the somewhat better, cleaner e12:



But getting back to the e60/f10. It has has gone from ok (e61 pre-lci) to nice (lci) to not so nice (f10); instead of really nice. What happened to the upgrade trend they were on just a few years ago? The M instruments showed promise with the variable RPM redline which I had hoped would trickle down to the whole range. BMW should fire the person responsible for instrument development and hire someone from the swiss mechanical watch industry to do a little magic with the instrument cluster. I'd prefer a classy analog look augmented with real glass, aluminum and chrome and a broader range of instruments; old Jaguar style. Same time I'd relish that you via idrive can choose what to show, which you to some extent can do in the F11 (you can remove the regenerative braking thing) and also add a little bling, Subaru-style, such as instruments doing a full range fluid movement when you turn the ignition on and that they are blackened out completely until ignition is on. There is so much that can be done so it is dissapointing to see them move in the wrong direction. I'll keep my e61 for now as this is a key issue for me; apart from how the car rides and handles.

If anyone knows of a link to a 3rd party instrument provider that does a little of what I'm talking about then I'd be much interested in hearing about it.

 

I dunno man, I think they were going for a classy clean look, which I think they have succeeded.

 

Have you checked the plasticness of the whole thing? Perhaps you have to see it firsthand to believe it as a picture may not be sufficiently clear. I'm clearly dissapointed.

 

Thanks but not much people have defected clusters

 

I have done this mod, very easy.

You can find the rings on ebay Ebay item
Took me about 45 min.

Important tip: put some cloth/fabric inside the cluster in front of the plastic window when you remove/insert the rings, otherwise you will scratch it.